Turn element of lxml.objectify back into XML

Question

I use lxml.objectify to easily parse and work with an XML file. For auditing reasons, I have to save a derived object together with the originating XML code of the element.

root = lxml.objectify.fromstring(self.get_xml_data())

for i, elem in enumerate(root.elements):
    # create new database entry based on elem
    elem_obj.source_code = turn_elem_into_xml(elem)

How could I implement turn_elem_into_xml?

Answer 1

lxml.etree.tostring

In [21]: r = lxml.objectify.fromstring('<root><item>1</item><item>2</item></root>')

In [22]: lxml.etree.tostring(r.item)
Out[22]: '<item>1</item>'

Answer 2

lxml.objectify elements are still normal elements. You can print them like any other, or turn them into strings, using lxml.etree.tostring.